When we moved to Alpine, I realized that one of our ancestors, John Langston, moved to Alpine in the early days of the city and that my great-great-grandmother, Mary Emma Langston, was actually born here. How John Langston came to be in Alpine is an interesting story.
From his history (Memories of John Langston, 2nd edition, written by Lynn Ivan Langston), starting with the family’s arrival in the Salt Lake Valley:
We arrived about August the 10, 1854, and I and family came right along to Draper, Salt Lake County, where we found Isaac Stewart and family. They had located there and were farming and raised a fair crop. They had come from the states two years before.
I stayed there, took up a claim, got up some hay and was fixing to build when the Bishop, W. L. Draper told me I could not have any water, but if I would go 4 miles out from the creek, cut a ditch all that way, I could have some water. I said it was selfishness in him, so I went over the mountain to Alpine City and bought a place of 27 acres which stripped me of all the stock I had but one yoke of oxen.
Came to Alpine City Oct., 1854, as soon as I got moved and things settled I was chosen the president and ordained to that office, having previously been ordained a priest under the hands of Jackson Smith.
So that’s how he came to live where I now live. He stayed until October 22, 1862, when John and his family were called on a mission in Dixie, and ended up settling in Rockville, Utah. But that’s another story.
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